Democrats aren’t wasting any time in pouncing on this morning’s NYT story about what the DSCC spokesman called “shocking and offensive” blog posts about drugs, sex and woman that appeared on what purported to be the personal blog of a potential Republican challenger to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Marc Cenedella.

The DSCC spokesman just so happens to be Matt Canter, who used to work for New York’s junior senator until last March.

“Cenedella, who may challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in New York, does not deny that the content came from him,” Canter said in an email send this morning that included a link to the story on TheLadders.com founder’s site. “Is this the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Mr. Cenedella? Will Republicans in NY and DC tell this guy to take a hike?”

According to The Capital’s Reid Pillifant, Gillibrand herself joined the fray this morning, saying Cenedella’s alleged blog “fundamentally shows a lack of judgment,” and adding:

“I have concerns because I feel like the nature of the rhetoric is very anti-women and very disrespectful and disregards women. And I think it’s a matter of judgment that, and a level of inappropriateness, that’s not appropriate for anyone seeking any office.”

It’s unclear if Gillibrand was asked if she or anyone connected to her might have been the “opponent” who alerted the Times about the existence of the controversial blog.

The blog was disabled after the Times started asking questions of Cenedella’s political advisor. A spokesman for TheLadders did not confirm or deny that Cenedella authored the posts in question, which included headlines like “Sexy vs. Skanky,” “Dating Advice for Girly Girls,” “He Stole My Weed” and “High Quality Dope.”

There was also a link to a site that touted March 14 as a “new holiday for men” on which woman are supposed to demonstrate their appreciation for the men in their lives by providing them with steak and oral sex.

TheLadders.com said in a statement that the blog was “not Marc’s actual blog,” but rather a “maintenance staging site” that “contained testing content from a wide variety of sources, including spam from automatic spiders. We have since eliminated the potential for anyone to view the maintenance site.”

Some party leaders – other than former Erie County Executive Chris Collins, who is decidedly not a fan – have been interested in Cenedella, particularly since the only declared challenger to Gillibrand, Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos, has so far failed to catch fire.

They’re also likely very interested in Cenedella’s ability to self-fund. He puportedly has said he’ll seed his own campaign with more than the $5 million Maragos has already pledged to spend.

UPDATE: A statement from Cenedella’s (recently hired) political spokesman Bill O’Reilly admits the existence of the blog and does not further the “test site” line that TheLadders was pushing. Instead, O’Reilly suggests the posts were merely commenting on other, existing (and arguably offensive) posts, but were not original content. He also seeks to further muddy the waters by bringing the PIPA controversy into this discussion.

“Kirsten Gillibrand has once again show today that she does not understand the Internet,” O’Reilly said. “Last week she almost destroyed it with her PIPA legislation, and today she shows her ignorance about the blog world.”

“The site in question, Stone.com, was a popular site between 2003-2008 with five or six authors, including Marc Cenedella. It riffed off material moving around the Internet in those days. Stone didn’t write the material Senator Gillibrand’s opposition research team is spreading, it commented on it as did thousands of others. There is a huge difference between writing original content and remarking on that content. Ms. Gillibrand needs to do her homework.”

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